From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Eighty Years After the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Is the Escalating Arms Race Taking Us Further Away From Peace?
Date August 10, 2025 12:00 AM
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EIGHTY YEARS AFTER THE ATOMIC BOMBS ON HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI, IS THE
ESCALATING ARMS RACE TAKING US FURTHER AWAY FROM PEACE?  
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Carmen Grau
August 6, 2025
Equal Times
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_ In the global context of rearmament, there seems to be no sign of
any move towards reducing nuclear arsenals or halting their
modernisation. Quite the contrary. _

For decades, the survivors of the atomic bombs have carried out vital
educational work, involving future generations to ensure that their
memory is not lost and young people can pass it on in the future,
(Toñi Guerrero).

 

For the 80th year in a row, on the mornings of 6 and 9 August, two
Japanese cities will start the day observing a minute of silence to
remember the two nuclear bomb attacks on civilian populations and to
keep the memory alive for future generations. While Hiroshima and
Nagasaki stand firm in their commitment to peace and promoting the
non-proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide, powerful arms
producers continue to fill their coffers in every corner of the globe.
From the United States to Europe, China and Japan, military spending
is rising in a spiral of rearmament and new conflicts.

“No more _Hibakusha_” is the rallying cry of the atomic bomb
survivors in Japan [_editor’s note: ‘Hibakusha’ literally means
‘bomb-affected people’ in Japanese_]. “Let not humanity destroy
itself with nuclear weapons! Let us work together for a human society,
in a world free of nuclear weapons and war!” was the call made by
Terumi Tanaka, a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing, at the close of his
speech
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accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Nihon Hidankyo
association. Is his plea for humanity more necessary now than ever?

The top 100 firms engaged in the sale of arms and military services
increased their global revenues by 4.2 per cent in 2023 due to high
global demand, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute (SIPRI). Heading the list
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are five US companies, followed by one British, one Russian and three
Chinese. There are 27 European companies in the top 100 (France,
Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, etc.), compared with 41 from the US.
The war in Ukraine has fuelled the purchase of ammunition, artillery,
defence systems and tanks in Europe, along with the renewal and
modernisation of arsenals, as outlined by Fundipau and SIPRI.

Russian and Middle Eastern companies are not lagging behind in their
sales either. And the war in Gaza and the conflict in Iran portend an
upward trend. Three Israeli companies had record-breaking revenues
according to SIPRI, while the number of fatal victims in Gaza – a
third of them children – has exceeded 80,000
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and the numbers keep rising. And, still, a permanent ceasefire is
nowhere in sight.

There are 23 companies from Asia in the top 100. Japan’s five
weapons producers and South Korea’s four are raking in profits from
the global arms race, as their governments increase defence spending
in response to the perceived threat posed by the rise of China, and
having embraced the US military umbrella. There are nine Chinese
companies, three Indian, one based in Taiwan and three Turkish, along
with several others on the list of leading military industry players.

A decade of increased military spending and the move “away from
peace”

We are witnessing the sharpest increase in military spending since the
Cold War, as shown by the figures compiled by SIPRI
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with an increase of 9.4 per cent and total spending of US$2.72
trillion in 2024. This is the tenth annual increase in a row. By
country, the United States, China, Russia, Germany and India have the
largest military budgets in the world and account for 60 per cent of
the total. And more than 100 other countries are also increasing their
military spending. In Europe alone, including Russia, defence spending
rose by 17 per cent, triggering a global chain reaction.

For Jesús Núñez, co-director of the Spanish Institute for Studies
on Conflicts and Humanitarian Action (IECAH), this intense arms race
has its roots in the global rivalry between the US and China, but that
this is not the only driver. Washington is asking its Pacific allies
to increase their military efforts to help contain China, while the
European Union, he explains, “has not only set itself the goal of
strategic autonomy in the face of the Russian threat posed by the war
in Ukraine but also out of fear that the US will cease to be the
ultimate guarantor of its security and withdraw the protection it has
provided over the last few decades. This is driving the EU’s
rearmament.” Another factor, he adds, is the local or regional
agenda fuelling other conflicts: “There are middle powers that are
vying for regional leadership and are intensifying the race. Morocco
and Algeria, for example, are fighting for leadership in the
Maghreb.” For this expert, the times we are living in are a repeat
of the Cold War dynamics and are “moving us away from peace”.

In June 2025, 32 NATO leaders met in The Hague and agreed on a
historic increase in defence spending, to five per cent of national
GDP by 2035. All countries, except Spain, agreed to join this arms
race. But prioritising military security will come at the expense of
other spending, with economic and social repercussions for citizens,
as experts and activists warn. Peace organisations
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such as Campaign Against Arms Trade
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and the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT) have stepped up
their criticism of European rearmament plans, considering them to
benefit the arms industry at the expense of social spending.

How to prevent conflict?

“The UN is the main body for preventing war for future
generations,” says Núñez, referring to the Charter of the United
Nations, a tool created in 1945 to maintain international peace and
security, followed in 1948 by the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. But, as the expert notes, “We are going backwards, with the
UN weakened and left powerless by the lack of political will shown by
member states.” Núñez points to the promotion of democracy as a
means of preventing violent conflicts, but warns of the growing
deterioration of democracies and the rise of authoritarianism,
combined with poor leadership and the short-termism that dominates the
agendas of national governments, without a vision that embraces future
generations.

A prime example is Japan, which is also increasing defence spending
and is on track to reach its two per cent of GDP target by 2027.

Despite a civil society crying out for pacifism in light of its status
as a victim of the atomic bombings, the Japanese government has not
ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW),
which entered into force in 2021. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are at the
core of this treaty, which mentions the survivors of the atomic bombs
in its preamble.

Japan proffers the excuse that none of the states that possess nuclear
weapons have ratified it and that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) – to which it is a signatory – acts more as a deterrent
without curbing nuclear development. The Hiroshima Prefecture,
however, sees the TPNW as a crucial step toward achieving a “world
without nuclear weapons”
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and has repeatedly urged the Japanese government to change its stance.

In the global context of rearmament, there seems to be no sign of any
move towards reducing nuclear arsenals or halting their modernisation.
Quite the contrary. And so, as SIPRI warns in another recent report
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nuclear risks are increasing amid the new arms race. Almost all
countries with nuclear weapons (the United States, Russia, United
Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel –
which maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity) are modernising or
increasing their nuclear arsenals, and, if they had not already done
so by 2024, as is the case with the United Kingdom, they are likely to
do so in the future.

Peace and historical memory, an endless struggle

The Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs, the _Hibakusha_, are
living witnesses and global symbols of peace. Now in their eighties
and nineties, they are aware that time is running out. In 2024, Nihon
Hidankyo, the Japanese Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers
Organisations, founded in 1956, received the Nobel Peace Prize in
Norway for its dedication and global impact.

For Agustín Rivera, journalist and author of _Hiroshima: Testimonios
de los últimos supervivientes_ (_Hiroshima: Testimonies of the Last
Survivors, 2023_), “Their struggle has been unrelenting, yet
recognition for their work has been slow in coming.” This Spanish
journalist spent years tracking down the last survivors of this
atrocity, to record their voices before it was too late in a
delicately crafted book of great historical value.

As Rivera explains: “The International Peace Bureau (IPB), an
organisation working for disarmament and winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1910, nominated Nihon Hidankyo for the award in 1985. It did
so again in 1994. To no avail. Not then, nor when the International
Atomic Energy Agency received the Nobel Prize in 2005, although the
Japanese association did, at least, receive a mention at that point
for its work against nuclear war.”

For decades, the survivors of the atomic bombs have carried out vital
educational work, involving future generations to ensure that their
memory is not lost and young people
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future.

They are convinced, in the words of survivor Tanaka, that only through
testimony and human empathy can people be a “force for change” and
influence national policies. Their work is a guiding light in the
quest for human rights.

This article has been translated from Spanish by Louise Durkin.
 
_Carmen Grau is a Spanish journalist specialised in east Asia. She
also works as a Japanese interpreter. In Nicaragua, she investigated
the Grand Transoceanic Canal and its connections with China. From Peru
she kept an eye on China’s soft power in Latin America. She has
worked on a range of publications in Spain, the United Kingdom,
Argentina and Nicaragua. She currently resides in Japan and is the
2019 winner of the ILO Global Media Competition (category: future of
labour migration)._
 
_Equal Times is a trilingual news and opinion website focusing on
labour, human rights, culture, development, the environment, politics
and the economy from a social justice perspective._
 
 

* Hiroshima
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* Nagasaki
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* nuclear weapons
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* Nuclear Disarmament
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* military spending
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